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Technical vs. Natural

By Eric Asimov October 25, 2006 4:31 pmOctober 25, 2006 4:31 pm

In my post of Oct. 16, “Watch What I Do, Not What I Say,’’ I tried to spoof the oft-heard cliché “non-interventionist winemaker.’’ Apparently I was vague enough that some people interpreted my post to mean that I was endorsing all sorts of winemaking manipulations and assailing those who are against them. That was not at all what I intended to do. My aim was simply to point out that much of what is presented as objective truth in wine talk is really subjective market speak. That goes for the winemakers who preach non-interventionism just as it does for the big-business types who try to sell their wines as “lifestyle choices.’’

Of course, you can’t expect people selling products to remove the cloak of marketing. They would not be doing their job, which is to sell what they make, whether it’s a 100,000-case California cabernet or a 100-case Sonoma Coast pinot noir. I hadn’t intended to demean either those winemakers who try as best they can to respect the character of a particular vintage nor winemakers who try year after year to achieve a consistent product with mass appeal.

That being said, major, significant differences separate wines that are squeaky clean technical achievements, manipulated by winemakers to meet particular taste profiles, from wines that are distinctive and individual. I don’t think I need to tell you which kinds of wines I love the most.

Yes, I can admire those mass-market wines. They are vast improvements on the swill of old that could as easily explode in the bottle as be palatable at dinner. For many people, predictability is more important than distinctiveness, and these wines give people what they want, just like the Gap and Starbucks and Red Lobster and Olive Garden.

I don’t question the legitimacy of these wines. Maybe I flatter myself, but I think I can tell the difference between wines that are created in the cellar by various technologies — whether scientifically devised yeasts, de-alcoholization, flavor or color enhancements — and those that are made in less intrusive ways. I find these more natural wines to be more distinctive, more interesting and more alive.

I can’t emphasize enough that these natural wines — maybe whole wines is a better term — are not always better than the more technological wines, which strike me as the sum of many parts. Some natural wines are truly egregious. Spouting hippie axioms is not even close to being a skilled grape grower or winemaker. Conversely, a minimally intrusive, non-interventionist approach can also result in the sort of massive, overripe, high-alcohol wines that are critically esteemed but I find hard to take. Sometimes it’s a matter of taste as well as approach. There’s no sure way to make a wine that everybody will consider great, short of putting Château Latour or Domaine Romanée-Conti on the label.

Nonetheless, the wines that I love the best are most often the result of winemakers who combine great terroir with a minimalist winemaking approach, who care for their land, believe in balance and refreshment, imagine their wines as part of a meal, and first and foremost make wines to please themselves.
I was thinking about this yesterday at an industry tasting of wines imported by Louis/Dressner Selections. This firm, based in New York, seeks out wines that are made in that style. It’s not the only importer that specializes in these sorts of wines, nor is it specifically idealistic. The wines happen to be the sort that the principals like themselves.

I like an awful lot of them, too. In fact, I was struck at the tasting by how many of the wines stood out as bright and alive. I didn’t taste everything there — more than 200 wines were being poured — but I wanted to mention some highlights.

Larmandier-Bernier has long been one of my favorite small producers of Champagne, and their lineup remains stellar. I particularly loved the Terre de Vertus, a blanc de blancs that is so full of minerally flavors it is almost gravelly. It is also blissfully dry as it does not receive a dose of sugar syrup, like most Champagnes do.

Philippe Pacalet makes Burgundies of great purity. They are beautifully aromatic and are generally lacking in the unimportant things, like dark color and toasty oak flavors.

Eric Texier is a négociant who specializes in Rhone wines. I loved his 2004 Brézemè, a syrah from a tiny region in the northern Rhone that is full of violet, bacon and olive aromas. Yum! He also makes a very nice white Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

Louis/Dressner also brings in a host of great producers from one of France’s most under-appreciated regions, the Loire Valley, including Thierry Puzelat, Pierre et Catherine Breton, Domaine du Closel, Clos Roche Blanche, Domaine le Briseau and Luneau-Papin. And from Italy come two idiosyncratic and interesting producers, Radikon and Angiolino Maule.

These wines are clearly not for everybody. That’s part of what makes them so fascinating.

I think you’d have to have a sensitive palate indeed to suss out scientifically devised yeasts, if you’re referring to the packaged yeast virtually every New World wine maker uses. Especially since those are isolated from naturally-occurring strains. Of course, if you’re talking about GM yeast, maybe one can, but I’d be skeptical.

Eric: I hope Louis/Dressner poured the Muscadets of Domaine Pepiere, made by Marc Ollivier. Wonderful examples of purity and intensity, they changed my mind about Muscadet. And they’re incredible bargains. The top cuvee, Clos de Briords, sells for about $14.
BTW, not many people appreciate the delicate and difficult art of irony.

I would like also to mention that artificial made wines are as bad for you as the McDonald’s. What you drink is bunch of chemical substances added to the wine in order to create a false sense of flavors. You can actually feel the difference the next day. When you drink artificial wines you feel heavy, little depress and the hang over is usually brutal plus, if you have a sensible stomach, you also will end up chewing Pepto-Bismol because of the heartburn. Good wines makes you definitely happier and lighter and the hang over is usually very mild and short. Like McDonald’s those wine are dirty cheap and taste decently but, like super size me showed us with the Big Mc diet, can be very dangerous.
Buona Bevuta a Tutti